Hysterical Paroxysms was created by The MessHall Collective in December, 2005. They used to have a page here but are now hybernating, so we killed that link. Oh well. The good news is they are all working on Disembody, so it's like we put the band back together.

But that's a whole other story.

Here's the Laughing Squid on the show:

As far back as the ancient Greeks, hysteria was defined as a "natural" irrationality reserved to the fairer sex. Less than a century ago medical doctors still believed that hysteria was related to the female reproductive organs, and used hysterectomies to "calm" women suffering from mental, emotional or psychological problems.

Collected by The MessHall Collective ( a collective of SF-based media artists), Hysterical Women is an installation of 100's of television and film clips. The clips, showing in an awkward amassment of televisions, represent a broad cross-cut of women as they are commonly portrayed in worldwide media through the last century - screaming, panicked and helpless.

For Hysterical Women, MessHall surveyed the history of the moving image, collecting the ever-recurring image of women screaming, an act completely entrenched in the representation of women in popular media. On film, the hysterical woman, suffering from societal, religious or self-imposed pressures, consistently and predictably loses control over her emotions.

The opening reception on December 2nd will be followed by a special Echo de Pensees presentation of live music and performance by Sixes with Dave Ed, Skullcaster and Gerritt.

And here's a flickr set of documentation from the install and opening.

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